The art of shadowing is perhaps one of the most difficult things a detective has to learn.

I mean, of course, difficult to become a good shadow—of the ordinary species, dogging the steps of the suspected criminal, giving themselves away at every possible opportunity, we have plenty and to spare.

It is not an easy matter to shadow some men unsuspected, and yet there are others whom one could follow half around the world and never a suspicion aroused.

Thus the ease or difficulty in the case of shadowing depends as much on the subject as upon the shadower; still a good shadower can accomplish wonders even with a difficult subject if he only gives his mind to his work.

The best shadows are men of common minds and insignificant appearance, who will pass readily without special notice in a crowd.

Men with strong minds and intense will power are apt, by the very intensity of their thought, to impress their subject with their presence, which he soon detects and the usefulness of the detective is gone.

Now for these very reasons I do not consider myself a good shadower, although long experience has enabled me to become quite expert at the business nevertheless.

I am too tall; my appearance is too marked.

I can, it is true, change my appearance by disguises, but I cannot add to or take from my stature, and my victim soon falls to wondering why so many tall men keep following him—from that moment my usefulness is gone.

I always choose medium sized men with light brown hair and mild blue eyes for shadows, when I can get them. A boy makes a splendid shadow. I have used them a great deal, and often very successfully. A woman if she is shrewd makes the very best of shadows for a man, but a very bad one for another woman.

My experience has shown me that most men seldom notice plain women in the street, although the contrary is generally believed to be the case.

Of course in all this I allude to city work. Out in the country it is altogether different. There the shadow must worm himself into the confidence of his subject and travel with him. He will surely lose him if he don’t.

And this is often done, and most successfully.

I once sent a young man all over South America with a defaulting bank cashier. It was necessary to inveigle the fellow upon United States soil before he could be arrested.

To do this was difficult. My man first struck him in the city of Mexico and made his acquaintance at a hotel, taking pains to get an introduction to him which put him on a proper footing at the start.

For over a year he stuck to him and they grew to be like brothers.

They visited Brazil, Chili, Buenos Ayres and Peru; eating together, sleeping together, and all that sort of thing.

Long before the year was over the defaulter confessed the whole story to my man. He had taken $100,000 and had it all with him in gold and bills of exchange except what had been spent in his wanderings.

One day while at Callao, Peru, my man induced him to visit an American man-of-war then lying in the harbor.

This was the opportunity for which he had been so long seeking, and he immediately revealed himself and placed the defaulter under arrest, for to all intents and purposes they were then on American soil.

“My God! Jim, you can’t mean it!” the poor wretch exclaimed. “And I loved you so!”

Then he covered his face with his hands and cried like a child.

He brought him back on the man-of-war and the bank recovered $60,000 by the operation; the balance had been used up for expenses, and went to pay me the cost of the detective’s trip, which I personally advanced.

Now this was a shrewd piece of work. I admired my man for it from a business standpoint, but from a moral one I despised him.

I never could have done what he did in the world. It ain’t my nature. It needs a consummate hypocrite to successfully play such a role as that.

But such men are necessary to the detective force, and we must have them. I suppose all my readers are aware that we make use of thieves, gamblers and other hard characters very often to assist us in our work.

We have got to do this. We could not get along at all if we didn’t. Yet we never trust them one inch further than our interests are concerned; if we did we should get fooled every time.

So you see there are shadows and shadows, and the only rule I can lay down is the rule of common sense.

In shadowing use your judgment. Employ such means as circumstances seem to demand. Disguises will help you—are often entirely necessary, but it don’t do to put too much dependence on them. Common sense, quickness of thought, and a glib tongue will do more for the shadow than the best disguise ever made.

I remember a very clever piece of double shadowing accomplished shortly after Sam Kean began to study with me.

As I sent him west soon after it occurred it became necessary for him to write out a deposition of the case to be used by the district attorney in preparing the trial of this criminal. I happened to come across a copy of that document in my desk the other day, and may as well incorporate it here. I will call it

The Story of the Jewel Thief.

On a certain afternoon in February, I was sitting in Mr. Brady’s private office, waiting to receive instructions, when the boy brought in two cards. They bore the names of Mr. Marcus Welton and Mr. J. Denby Opdyke.

“Two high-toned ducks.” I immediately thought.

“Skip into that closet, Kean,” old King Brady whispered to me. “I want you to have a good look at these fellows, and listen to what they say. You know where the peep-hole is, or you ought to, for I showed you the other day.”

I knew, and in a moment I had my eye glued against it.

I was not mistaken in my estimate of the visitors. They were a couple of dudes of the most pronounced sort.

Welton was short and sallow, with big bulging eyes, a drawling voice. He looked what he was—a society fool.

His companion, however, was quite different. He was a tall, handsome fellow, with brown hair, shrewd gray eyes, and a determined mouth; yet there was something about his face which repelled me at once.

Both men were dressed in the most pronounced fashion of the day, and bore every evidence of possessing abundant means.

“Aw, Mr. Bwady, you got my note left here yestawday, I dessay,” drawled Welton.

“I did, sir,” replied the detective in his usual quick way. “Be seated, please.”

They accepted the invitation and Welton continued:

“What I want to see you about is a private mattaw. For some time past there have been wobbowies of jewelry in some of our best society. These wobbowies always take place on the occasion of parties or balls.”

“Yes, sir,” said Old King Brady as he paused.

“We want you to catch the thief,” said Mr. Welton. “My—aw—mother has been wobbed of a lot of diamonds. They were taken when she gave her ball a week ago. I want them—aw—wecovered. My fwiend, Mr. Opdyke, has a fwiend who has been wobbed. Mrs. Porthouse, widow of Admirwal Porthouse of the Navy. No doubt you knew the admiral. She has lost diamonds too—she wants them wecovered.”

“And very valuable ones they were, I assure you, sir,” put in Mr. Opdyke, who did not lisp.

“But have you no clew to the thief, gentlemen? Nothing to go by?” asked the detective.

No, they had absolutely nothing to offer. They wanted the thief caught and the diamonds recovered—they had no ideas beyond that.

Old King Brady thought a moment.

“When does society give its next ball, gentlemen?” he asked.

“To-night at Mrs. Lispenard’s,” answered Mr. Welton, promptly.

“Very good. To-night I will have a detective at Mrs. Lispenard’s, and we will see what can be done.”

“Give him a letter to me and I’ll post him,” said Mr. Opdyke. “My office is at No. — Wall street. Let him come before three.”

“Very good,” replied Old King Brady, and they left.

Now I fully expected that I was going to be sent out on that case, but I wasn’t.

When I came out of the closet Old King Brady had nothing to say about it, and didn’t allude to the matter for nearly five weeks—in fact till after Lent.

One day he called me aside and said, “You remember those two dudes who called on me that day you hid in the closet?”

“Yes,” said I.

“I sent a man to Opdyke,” he said, “and just as I supposed there was nothing taken that night.”

“Surely you don’t suspect Mr. Opdyke gave you away?” I exclaimed.

“I do. He may not have done it intentionally, but I’m certain he did it. I also have other suspicions. I’ve been quietly looking into this case.”

“And your suspicions are?”

“No matter. I want you to take a hand in it, Kean.”

“All right, sir,” I said, willing enough.

“To-night Mrs. Welton, the mother of that young squirt, gives a ball. You are to be present. You will be admitted without question, for the servant who tends the door will be one of my men.”

“And then, sir?”

“And then you’ll catch the jewel thief if you can,” he replied, somewhat testily.

“But have you no instructions?” I asked.

“No, sir. How can I have instructions when I don’t know anything about the matter? Do the best you can. I select you because you are a gentleman and have moved in good society. I expect you to catch that jewel thief to-night Mr. Kean.”

“But,” I protested, “ain’t you expecting too much?”

“That remains to be seen, sir.”

“I thought Mrs. Welton’s diamonds were stolen?”

“Bless my soul, sir!” he exclaimed, “the woman is worth four or five millions—don’t you suppose she’s bought new ones? Go, now, and do your very best.”

I left the office feeling that I had shouldered a big responsibility.

Hurrying home I dressed in my swallow tail and took a cab to Mrs. Welton’s. I had cards with all sorts of names engraved on them then. I remember the one I handed to the butler bore the name of Mr. Winfield Went. I eyed the man and saw at a glance that he was disguised. I thought I recognized him, but more on that matter later on.

Once by the door, of course I passed into the parlors unchallenged, my assumed name was announced, and Mrs. Welton greeted me most effusively. Whether she knew me or not for what I really was I cannot say.

Mr. Opdyke was there, and so was Marcus Welton, but I am sure neither of these gentlemen had the faintest suspicion that I was not straight.

The parlors were a perfect blaze of light; beautiful women and correctly attired men were moving in every direction; hidden behind a bank of flowers a noted orchestra discussed Lanner, Strauss, Offenbach, and other noted composers of that day.

Did I join in and dance?

Well, now, you may be very sure I did.

Fortunately there was no one present whom I knew, for Mrs. Welton’s was several pegs higher than any house I had ever visited before.

“What in the world am I to do?” I kept thinking. “Where am I to begin?” It was a puzzler, but I hadn’t learned the secret of patient waiting then.

After supper I strolled into the smoking-room.

There were a lot of gentlemen there, Mr. Opdyke among the rest.

I had no more than crossed the threshold than I perceived that they were talking about the jewel thief.

“He’s given you one call, hasn’t he, Welton?” asked a Mr. Dalledouze.

“Yaas,” drawled Welton. “He got away with a lot, too. But my mother has weplaced them. She don’t wear diamonds to-night, because she’s afraid to show them, but there’s ten thousand dollars’ worth in her dressing-case up-stairs, all the same.”

“Gad! I wouldn’t blow about it if I was you then,” spoke up a Mr. Partello. “Whoever the jewel thief is, be very sure he passes for a gentleman. He may be right among us now for all we know.”

Then everybody looked at me because I was a stranger, and I haven’t the least doubt that some of them put me down for the thief.

“He’s bound to be caught sooner or later, though!” said Mr. Opdyke.

“Sure,” replied Partello. “No balls given without detectives now, gentlemen.”

“I’m surprised,” I put in, “not to see one here to-night.”

“How do you know there ain’t one?” demanded Opdyke, putting his single glass into his eye, and staring at me.

“Is there one?” I asked, as innocent as you please.

“I know nothing about it,” he said, shortly. I turned away, and began talking to a gentleman who stood near me. But I kept my eye upon everybody in the room.

“If the thief is here, he heard Welton’s foolish boast about the diamonds,” I reflected. “If he heard that he will try to get them, and there’s no better chance than now, while the gentlemen are busy with their cigars.”

I watched curiously to see who would be the first to leave the room, and made up my mind that I had got to do a little shadowing. I was right.

“Welton!” exclaimed Mr. Opdyke suddenly. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, old fellow, but these cigars of yours are not worth a continental.”

“Bought ’em at Lark and Gilford’s anyhow!” retorted Welton. “They cawst twenty dollars a hundred, by Jove, so they ought to be good.”

“Pshaw! Price has got nothing to do with it,” cried Opdyke. “Let me give you a cigar that I’ve struck. It’s in my overcoat pocket. I’ll fetch it in just one minute. You wait.”

Now I had made up my mind to follow the first man who left the room, and consequently I started to follow Mr. Opdyke.

Of course I had to wait a moment for decency’s sake, then I hurried out to the coat-room. I went straight, too.

Mr. Opdyke was not there.

“Where’s that gentleman who was here a second ago, Sam?” I asked of the darky who had charge of the coats.

“Warn’t no gemplum here, sah!” replied the fellow grinning, for I had tipped him a dollar.

“Sure?”

“Suah as death, sah.”

I retreated. But I had not gone two steps before I met Mr. Opdyke coming along the hall.

“Got through smoking?” he asked, nodding pleasantly.

“Yes,” I replied. “You were right about those cigars.”

“Of course I was.”

“Did you get those of yours?”

“Oh, yes. Just got them from my top coat. Have one?”

“Thank you.”

I accepted the weed, but I knew that it didn’t come from his coat.

“Madame,” said I to Mrs. Welton, drawing her aside a few moments later. “I have a confession to make!”

“What is it, Mr. Went?” She was all smiles as she put the question, and when I informed her that I was a detective she didn’t look a bit disturbed.

“Well, sir, what is it?” she asked. “I knew a detective was in the house, but I confess I did not suspect you.”

“I want you to go immediately and look at your jewel case,” I whispered.

She turned pale, and yet she ought to have expected it.

“You don’t mean——” she began.

“But I do, though. Which is your room, madam?”

She told me.

It was close to the door of that room that I met Mr. Opdyke with his cigars.

Mrs. Welton took my advice.

“I’ll wait for you at the foot of the stairs,” I whispered.

In a moment she came back, looking paler still.

“Every diamond has been taken,” she whispered, excitedly, “and you know the thief?”

“Pardon me, madam; I only suspect.”

“Who?”

“No matter.”

“Not—not my son?”

“Thank God, no, Mrs. Welton.”

She looked relieved.

“Don’t you arrest him here!” she said, hurriedly. “I’d rather lose the diamonds twice over than to have it occur in my house. I’ll reward Mr. Brady handsomely if the jewels are recovered, but it must be done somewhere else.”

She left me, and I at once got my hat and coat and hurried to the street.

As I passed out I noticed that there was another doorkeeper now, but I thought nothing of it at the time.

Did I suspect Opdyke then?

I did, and with reason.

When I started to go back to the smoking room he was in the coat room getting ready to leave. I did not stop to speak or delay a moment, but just tipped the darky a wink, got my coat and slid out ahead.

“I’ll shadow that man,” I thought. “It won’t do to arrest him and get left.”

Candidly, I hardly cared to undertake the job, for he was a big, powerful fellow and had Mr. Dalledouze with him.

I slipped across the street, changing my opera hat for a slouch felt, and putting on a false mustache.

There I stood behind a tree peering out and watching the steps of the Welton mansion with eager eyes.

I was disappointed when I saw them come out together, but it couldn’t be helped.

It was then just one o’clock.

They passed me and never suspected, still talking about the cigars.

Then I glided after them and saw them enter the Brunswick. They went into the bar-room and so did I, but I simply passed in one door and out the other. They were drinking at the bar; that was enough to tell me that they meant to come out soon.

Opdyke came out alone ten minutes later. Afterward I learned that his companion lived at the hotel.

He started down Fifth avenue. I moved along on the other side of the way.

Once he looked round, and I knew that he was looking at me.

Did he suspect?

Evidently, for he crossed right over and managed to get behind me. I grew nervous, but there was no safe way but to keep straight on.

How keenly I listened to the ring of his footsteps I’ll never tell you. I still heard them; he was coming toward me—not going back.

“He don’t suspect,” I muttered. “Perhaps, after all, I’m wrong.”

Soon he passed me, for I had slackened my pace. He never turned his eyes, though, but just walked straight across the square, passed the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and I saw him stop and speak to a hack driver on the Twenty-third street side.

Now, here is where what Old King Brady called my fine work came in.[1] I saw Mr. Opdyke enter that hack, and I saw the driver leap on the box and whip up his horses, but I did not make the mistake of thinking that my man was inside.

Why?

Positively I can’t tell. I was too far away to see the dodge, but I felt sure that he had passed through the hack, paying the fellow to drive off as he did.

Therefore, instead of running after the hack down Twenty-third street, as a fool would have done, I shot over to lower Fifth avenue, and was just in time to spy my man walking on ahead at a rapid pace.

He had crossed the street while I was watching the hack.

Now I felt that I had no ordinary person to deal with. He knew me, and he knew that I knew him.

Twice he looked around, but I took care to remain as much as possible in the shadow of the buildings, so he did not see me. While I walked I changed my hat for another and put on English side whiskers—then I was a different man.

Where was he going?

I had not long to wait without knowing.

He hurried down Fifth avenue to Waverly Place—along Waverly Place to a certain side street, running up the stoop of the corner house. Before I could reach the spot he had passed inside.

Had I lost him?

At first I thought so, and was wondering what I ought to do when a policeman came along.

I showed him my shield and told him what I was after.

“What’s going on in there?” I asked, pointing to the house.

“Sure that’s Mike Reed’s,” said the officer. “You must be a new hand at the business if you don’t know Big Mike.”

Now I didn’t know Big Mike, and I said so, whereupon I was informed that the big one ran a little game. How well the fellow knew!

“Is it a tough place?” I asked.

“So, so,” replied the officer.

I was too proud to ask him to help me. I was resolved to capture that man myself and take him to the station—something I had never done as yet.

But I am willing to admit that I was all in a tremble when I pulled Mike Reed’s bell.

There was no trouble in getting in.

One sharp look on the part of the darky door-tender, and I was admitted.

There were quite a few persons in the lower rooms, and among them Mr. Opdyke. He was standing over the rouge-et-noir table, and had already taken a hand in the game.

I walked boldly up to the table and joined in.

Opdyke looked up at me as I bought the chips, but his glance was only momentary. It was quite evident that he did not suspect.

We played out four rounds, and to my astonishment I won.

I could see that Opdyke was getting worked up, and I threw down the cards and walked away.

I was deeply perplexed.

How could I accomplish my purpose without raising a scene?

There was one way which had suggested itself to me at the outset, and for want of a better plan I resolved to try that.

Now before I entered Big Mike’s at all, I had walked around on the side street and taken a careful survey of the ground.

There was a low brick wall dividing the yard from the street, and a back piazza behind the house.

If I could only get him out into the back yard and through the side gate I thought, I shall be all right.

I knew it was make or break with me. If he was an innocent man, my detective career was as good as closed, for Opdyke was a lawyer and a member of a good New York family. Nothing short of finding the jewels in his possession would fill the bill.

Then I resolved to try the power of dollars and my official shield.

“Sam,” I said, button-holing the darky in the hall.

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you want to make ten dollars?”

“Yes, sir, you bet, ef it won’t cost me my job.”

“Do you see that tall, black-haired man in there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Know him?”

“Yes, sir. He often come here.”

“Is he liberal to you?”

“Never give me a cent, sir.”

“Look here, I’ll give you ten dollars now if you do just as I say. It shan’t cost you your job and I’ll give you ten more. Sam, I’m a detective. I want that man, and I won’t get him out of here without a row—see!”

Sam’s eyes rolled until only the whites could be seen. I had displayed my shield.

“What can I do, sir?” he asked, pocketing the bill.

“That back door,” I whispered, “is it ever used?”

“Always, to go out of after midnight, sir.”

“And the gate?”

“The gate opens on the inside, sir, wif a spring latch.”

“Sam,” I continued, “you open that gate, let me out the back way, and then call out that gentleman, and tell him quietly that some one is on the back stoop who wants to see him. If he comes out, you’ll find a ten dollar bill on the stoop just as soon as we’re gone. Be sure you lock the door after he passes through.”

When I told Old King Brady about that scheme, he laughed, and said it was a crazy one, and might have got me into a heap of trouble.

Very good. I’m willing he should think so. It succeeded all the same.

Sam opened the gate, let me out on the stoop, and there I waited, ten dollar bill in hand.

It was only for a few moments I had to wait, but I just want you to understand that I got nervous. I was all in a shake when the door suddenly opened, and Mr. J. Dudley Opdyke, without a hat, stepped out.

“You!” he exclaimed. “What the devil do you want with me, sir, that you couldn’t say inside?”

Bang went the door behind him, and the key was heard to turn in the lock.

I think he suspected the moment the door closed, but I didn’t give him the chance to do anything—not even to say a word.

“I want you!” I hissed, covering him with my revolver, and clutching his arm with what Old King Brady calls my iron grip.

He never said a word, but just went for me.

In an instant my revolver was knocked out of my hand, and we, locked in each other’s arms, went rolling down the stoop.

Then I thought he had me.

He was trying to get at his pistol—I had no other weapon than the one I had lost.

Everything seemed to depend then upon who happened to be the under dog.

Well, the under dog that time happened to be my humble self.

“I’ll never be taken alive,” he breathed, half rising and planting his knee on my breast.

I saw the glitter of his revolver. I saw him raise it—heard the cock click, when suddenly a firm voice now grown familiar to me spoke.

“Don’t yer do it, boss. Drop that shooter or you’re a dead duck. One—two——”

The revolver went ringing to the pavement, and through the gate a man came dashing with a cocked revolver in each hand. By that I would have known him if by nothing else.

It was Mrs. Welton’s butler, but it was also Dave Doyle!

“Grab him!” he breathed.

I had already grabbed him.

“Snake him through the gate before the house gets onto us!” he added.

Well, in spite of the fight he showed we “snaked” him through the gate.

“What do you want?” Opdyke stammered, now completely cowed.

“These!” I exclaimed, pulling a jewel-case out of his inner pocket. “I haven’t been shadowing you for nothing, my friend.”

“Diamonds!” echoed Dave, holding him while I opened the case.

“I knowed we’d fetch him, Sam, soon as ever I seen you go out of the house and started on the shadow myself.”

Well, we got him safely to the station-house, and then sent for Old King Brady.

After that I—but I think I’ve told my story about to the end, so I may just as well wind up right here.

Note:—Now, this is a case of double shadowing, and it illustrates also a great principle in detective science, (which is that when two men are earnestly working in a case, both determined to succeed) they will seemingly play into each other’s hands.

I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s almost always so.

Dave Doyle told me next morning that he was just as certain that Sam Kean would try to get his man out by the back way as he ever was of anything.

How did he know it?

Now that is something I can’t tell you—I can only say that the same thing has often happened to me.

You see I was inclined to suspect Opdyke, because I had taken the trouble to inquire into his habits, but I had no idea that Sam would get anything more than a clew that night.

Yet to make sure I had Doyle put on the door as butler, Mrs. Welton was perfectly informed of the whole plot.

As soon as Opdyke and his friend Dalledouze left the house, Dave, who had been alive to what was going on, followed them.

He shadowed Sam all the way to Big Mike’s, and never gave himself away once.

How did he do it?

Why by keeping at a considerable distance and always in the shadow.

Of course one runs a risk of losing the game by doing this, but Dave took the chances and won.

If Sam’s shadowing work was good, then Dave’s was better, but if I had told either that the other one was working on the case I doubt if the result would have been so good.

You can’t act out your true nature if you know some one is watching you all the time.

Sam had not the faintest idea that Dave Doyle was on the case until he sprang through Big Mike’s back gate just in time to save his life, while Dave, who had been in the house all the afternoon, never knew that Sam was coming until he suddenly appeared at the door.

Before this Dave had selected Mr. Opdyke as the thief—I mean before the night of the party, because he had shadowed him to Big Mike’s the day previous, and there saw him exhibit a set of diamond jewelry—pin, ear-rings, etc.—of great value, which Dave at once recognized as stolen goods.

That is why I hoped Sam would trap him, and that it would be valuable practice for him, I knew, so—but there I’ve said enough and need only add that after a long and weary trial Opdyke was convicted and sent to Sing Sing on a fifteen year sentence, which was all it amounted to, for he had powerful friends possessed of that mysterious influence “political pull.”

Would you believe it? In less than six months I met Opdyke walking down Broadway with all the assurance you please.

“Hello!” I exclaimed, grabbing him by the arm unceremoniously, “how did you get out?”

“Go to thunder and find out!” he retorted, pulling away.

I wasn’t to be put off that way, so I grabbed him again and let him understand that I meant business. I ran him around to headquarters in short order.

Well, what do you think it amounted to for me?

Confidentially, let me tell you, that it came pretty near depriving me of my own position on the police force.

Next day I met Mr. Opdyke sailing down Wall street.

I didn’t arrest him that time. He is now a noted stock operator and is believed to be a millionaire, but I know him to be a rascal from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet.

That’s the way the efforts of the detective are often brought to nought. It is an outrage and a shame that it should be so, but so it is.

“Didn’t I send you to the island for six months last week?” asked my friend Judge Curtain of a seedy looking specimen who was brought before him for petty larceny the other day.

“Yes, yer honor,” was the answer.

“Then how is it that you are here?”

“Dunno, yer honor,” grinned the thief.

Nor did any one else seem to know.

This time the judge gave him two years, but six months later I saw him walking calmly down the Bowery one night.

That’s the way it goes in New York and always has.

If you are ever going to make a successful detective you have got to mind your own business strictly and not attempt to correct the morals of those over you. Nothing but trouble for yourself can ever result.